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29 September, the end of reenactment season
2003.09.28 13:39
Two years ago tomorrow was when Lower Manhattan was first reopened to the public after the events of 9-11. The World Trade Center site was still very much a mass grave then.
22 September 1996: two fathers of several individuals within my closest circle of friends (rather unexpectedly) died. Two funerals, two days in a row, same cemetery. My father died one year and two days later.
24 September 1814: the death of J-B-L-G Seroux d'Agincourt.
I have cursorily known of Seroux d'Agincourt since purchasing a bound edition of his 70-odd architectural engravings for $50. at a Philadelphia used book store in 1984, and in 1988 I became more aware of Seroux's work via Anthony Vidler's "The Decline and Fall of Architecture: Style and Epoch in Gibbon and Seroux d'Agincourt" in The Writing on the Walls. Here I found out that the engravings I have are from a much larger work (in French, whose title translates The History of Art Through Its Monuments From Its Decline in the Fourth Century to Its Renewal in the Sixteenth). Seroux makes reference to this work as itself (like) a museum (of architecture, sculpture and art), and several of Seroux's engraved plates were on display during Quondam's first two years online. While Seroux's architecture engravings (in Quondam's collection) are very engaging, they are also frustrating (for me) because each individual drawing is numbered, but no text was included with the engraving (as purchased). About a month ago I found that Seroux's entire work was translated into English in 1843, and that a copy of this edition is within Temple University's Paley Library, albeit in the behind-locked-doors limited circulation collection. It turns out that 'limited circulation' means borrowing privileges for two weeks instead of four week. It took me the better part of a week to electronically transcribe Seroux's text, and it turns out that the engravings present a history of architecture depicted in more or less strict chronological order, thus manifesting (something like) a vast evolutionary chart that diagrams whole buildings, as well as building parts like arches, walls, columns, capitals, and bases, and domes. It didn't take me long to see that Seroux's method would be favorably enhanced via HTML. Reenactment of The History of Art Through Its Monuments From Its Decline in the Fourth Century to Its Renewal in the Sixteenth forthcoming.
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